DE 102 57 308 B3 has disclosed a connector for printed circuit boards, comprising a number of contact elements, the contact elements each having two connection sides, one connection side being in the form of an insulation displacement contact for connecting wires and the other connection side being in the form of a fork contact for making contact with connection areas on a printed circuit board, and a plastic housing in which the insulation displacement contacts of the contact elements can be inserted, the insulation displacement contact and the fork contact being arranged such that they are rotated towards one another, and at least one lower edge of the insulation displacement contact being supported on the plastic housing such that the contact elements are held in the plastic housing such that they are secured against falling out in the event of connection forces occurring on the insulation displacement contacts, the plastic housing comprising at least one region in the form of a chamber, and the fork contacts being completely accommodated in the longitudinal direction by the plastic housing, ribs being arranged on the inner sides in the region in the form of a chamber and defining the guides for the fork contacts, the contact regions of the fork contacts protruding beyond the ribs, and the ribs being beveled in the front region.
Such cable connectors serve the purpose, for example, together with a housing part which bears the printed circuit board, of forming a distribution board connection module, which has also already been described in DE 102 57 308 B3.
Such a distribution board connection module is also already known from DE 100 29 649 A1, comprising a housing in which input and output contacts are arranged such that they are accessible from the outside for connecting lines and wires, the housing being formed with a cavity in which functional elements are arranged between the input and output contacts. The functional elements are arranged on at least one printed circuit board which is supported in the housing, the functional elements providing, for example, overvoltage protection. In addition, the functional elements may also be filter circuits such as XDSL splitters.
The arrangement of the filter circuit on the same printed circuit board as the surge arresters has a few disadvantages, however. In addition to the increased production complexity in terms of population, in particular the number of contact points required for the line path is increased. However, the reliability of the distribution board connection module is thus decreased in particular if these contact points need to withstand high current loads. In addition, owing to the placement of the surge arresters on the main board, the physical area available there for the filter circuits is decreased. Furthermore, surge arresters usually require greater copper thicknesses, which is likewise reflected in the costs and space requirement. Such main boards are generally designed for a plurality of subscribers and are arranged in stacked fashion in rack systems. Furthermore, the complete main board needs to be removed in order to replace a defective surge arrester. In this case, subscribers which are not involved would also be interrupted and adversely affected. As an alternative, the surge arresters could also be plugged onto the cable connector from above, in this case, however, the contacts no longer being freely accessible for jumpering.